I'm not alone

Just a quick one, but not from my wife.

The other day, my brother's wife (who has a bachelor's degree in business) asked me if she would need a passport to go to Hawaii.

A Loin By Any Other Name

I have mentioned before that I do all our cooking. Naturally, I also do most of the grocery shopping. When our schedules do not allow for this, she goes. Lucky for me, she had some time to go today.

That's when it started.

She has called me called me three times today within ten minutes with various food questions. But this one was my favorite.

M: Me, trying to work.
W: The wife, checking out the tenderloins.

W: "So what's the difference between these two? This one is called 'Beef Filet' and the other one is called 'Pork Tenderloin'."
M: "One is beef and the other one is pork."
W: "Oh."

A Sink is a Sink. Ya Think?

My wife loves working on our house. Check that. My wife loves it when I work on the house. She doesn't quite understand all the planning involved with this.

She decided one day that she wanted to replace the sink in one of our bathrooms. So she went out, found one she liked, bought it, and brought it home.

"What is this?", I asked.

"A sink for the bathroom. I was sick of looking at the one in there." (I agreed. It needed replacing.)

"How did you know what size to get?", I asked.

"What?"

"How did you know what size to get?", I repeated. "Sinks come in different sizes. We need a smaller one than usual since the cabinet is kind of small."

"Oh." This is the sound she makes when the light goes on in her head.

As I figured, the sink she bought was too big, so she had to take it back. I also had to stop the other work I was doing to go with her and find the right size.

Whatever You Want Is Fine...Unless It's Not

Me: " So, what would like for dinner tomorrow night? Grilled steaks or spaghetti and meat sauce?"

I usually have to ask my wife this since she is a very picky eater, whereas I will eat just about anything.

Her: "Why do you need to know now?"
Me: "So I can take the right meat out of the freezer to thaw."
Her: "Oh. What ever you want is fine."
Me: "Okay! Steaks it is."
Her: "Oh. Really? What about spaghetti?"

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Stupidity

I wrote a previous entry about the fact that my wife refuses to wear her glasses except when she is driving or watching TV. This forces to constantly search for them since she just sets them down when they become uncomfortable.

It finally happened. She lost them for good. We had gone out one day, and she did not realize they were missing until we got home.

We returned to the same place the following week. She actually wanted to patrol the parking lot and look for them. Obviously, we did not find them.

She has finally decided she needs new glasses. She asked me a question I did not expect.

"What do I do?"

"What do you mean?", I replied.

"How do I get new glasses?"

"Well, just call an eye doctor, make an appointment, get the new prescription, and then take it to LensCrafters or something."

"How do I do that?", she still asked.

My head began to hurt at this point. "Do what?", I said.

"Make an appointment." she said, matter-of-factly.

"Wha...How have you gotten glasses in the past? How did you see an eye doctor?"

"My mom made the appointment."

I remember when she got her last pair of glasses; it was about ten years ago. We were still dating, and she was well out of college. Yet she needed her mom to do it for her. What is even more bizarre is that she can make appointments for other things like doctor and dentist visits just fine.

Incidentally, she has needed a new prescription for a while, even before she lost her glasses. The only reason she has refused to go is because she doesn't like it when they perform the glaucoma test and puff air into her eyes.

Get a Leg Up

"Help!", she screamed. This could only mean that once again she had gotten herself into some inescapable predicament.

I tracked her voice to the top of our basement stairs where I was greeted not by my wife, but the bottom of a folding card table with all its legs extended.

We were preparing for a little Independence Day party and needed to bring some things up from the basement. Like the table.

She was leaning backwards trying not to fall while simultaneously keeping the table legs from scratching our newly painted basement walls. She found out too late that the table would not fit through the door to the first floor without folding the legs and was trying valiantly to wrestle it through.

As she held the table and I folded the legs down, I asked her why she just didn't fold the legs up first.

"That's too much work!", she barked.

High & Tighty

In the summer I like to get my hair cut fairly short. I told my wife this as I was leaving for the barber recently.

She jokingly meant to ask me if I was going to get a "high and tight" ala the U.S. Marines, but actually said "tighty-whitey" ala the underwear.

When It Rains, It Pours

Much of the country is experiencing semi-drought conditions right now, so I have been watering my lawn in the evenings like most of my neighbors.

Our sprinkler is rather flimsy, but it does the job. It can really put out a lot of water, but I have to place a brick on its base to keep it from flying all over the yard. Once it is secure, I can adjust the strength of the sprinkler with one knob and the pattern with another.

Here is why this information is important. The other night, my wife decided to "help" me.

I had just gotten it adjusted to spray those portions of the front yard that were particularly dry. But my wife was not satisfied with this. She thought that we needed to make it weaker since it was spraying the driveway somewhat and tried turning the spigot on the side of the house lower. I told her that it was fully open and that I could adjust it at the sprinkler.

"No, you can't", she replied. Turn. Turn. Turn.
"Yes, I can! Look." She didn't look. Turn. Turn. Turn. The other way.
"That's for the pattern!" Turn. Turn. Turn. Back again.

I motioned her over finally and reminded her of the little throttle on the side. I even demonstrated it for her.

"Oh", she replied finally.

At this point, she thought we weren't properly covering the lawn, so she went back up to the house and began pulling on the hose to move it closer to the house. Before I could tell her to stop, she pulled the sprinkler out from under the brick. The sprinkler promptly fell on its side and started thrashing about, spraying me in the process before I stomped it down with my foot.

The look on my face must have spoken volumes, because all she said was, "Do you just want to go in the house now?"

I did. I really did.

Burn, Baby Burn

"Help!", she called from the laundry room.

I rushed down the stairs as she called out, "Do you smell smoke?"

I did not, thankfully, and began to wonder what laundry mishap she found herself in this time.

She had once again chosen to ignore the care instructions emblazonened on an item. This time it was the cover for one of the kid's car seats. As I pulled it from the dryer, I noticed that one end was lightly singed, the opposite fairly damp. Underneath the burnt end, the plastic cushioning had begun to melt and congeal. Ironically, the giant care label was still hot to the touch.

I asked her why it was in the dryer when the instructions clearly say that it should drip dry.

"Oh, I don't have time for that."

Fortunately, I was still able to wrestle the cover back on the seat.

On the Road Again...

I got home from work one day at the usual time, and I noticed that my wife was just getting home herself. This is not unusual, but I know that she had left my parent's house about two hours earlier, and it is normally only a thirty minute trip.

I asked why she was so late. She sheepishly replied that she had done something dumb.

First, I need to provide some background. We live in a fairly large city, while my parents live in a smaller town several miles away. They are connected directly by a major interstate. There are lots of signs in both directions stating the distance to either.

She had left my parent's house and gone the wrong direction on the interstate.

For a half-hour.

All the way to our state capitol.

"Didn't you get concerned when you saw signs for the capitol and not our city?", I asked her.

"A little. But I didn't know what else to do.", she replied.

The Straight Poop

Just another typical day at the office...

Me: (type-type-type, click-click-click)
Cellphone: Ring!
Me: Hello.
Wife: Um, can you look something on the internet for me?

First off, she does this frequently, as the only website she knows how to access is Hotmail. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I have given up trying to teach her to do it herself.

Me: (sigh) Sure. What do you want to know about?
Wife: Um, chronic diarrhea?

Somebody please shoot me.

God helps those who helps themselves

This conversation happened this morning and is pretty typical. We were both getting ready for work.

Her: (Doing her hair, cat is bugging her) Could you check to see if the cat has food and water?
Me: (Shaving) Sure!

Five minutes later...

Me: (getting dressed)
Her: (Still doing hair, cat still bugging her) HAVE YOU CHECKED ON THE CAT YET?!?!?
Me: No.
Her: (stomping off) UGH! I'LL JUST DO IT MYSELF.

She will frequently ask me to do these types of small tasks thinking it will save her time and energy. She does not realize, however, that I am usually doing something else and these things go to the bottom of my list. She is just too overwhelmed by everything she has to do (i.e. how can I do my hair AND feed the cat at the same time), that she sees no other choice than delegation. It bothers me because it is if she assumes her time is more valuable than mine (and the cat is hers).I am trying to teach her that the following would work much better.

Her: (Doing her hair, cat is bugging her) Hmm, I better go see if the cat needs food and water. He seems really anxious, and it will only take a minute.

As long as I am around to save her, though, it will never happen.

This Old House...Will Never Be Finished

Some time ago, I took on a major undertaking. I was going to finish my basement.

It has taken far longer than I anticipated, however. I am almost always interuppted by my wife's cries for help (see my post about lawn mowing for an example).

She cannot seem to make a connection, even though I make the greatest progress when she either leaves me alone or takes the kids somewhere. Invariably, she will call me away from my hammering and splackling to help her in some greater endevour, such as hanging a picture on the wall or killing a bug.

I cannot express enough how her helplessness hinders us all. Whenever I go out of town for work, she immediately starts lining up friends and family to come over and help. She needs to be hand-held through every, little thing. Any failure on my part to provide complete and total assistance results in her calling me lazy.

So I have to roll my eyes whenever the following happens.

Almost every night, after everyone goes to bed, I retreat to my half-finished basement for solace. It is a place only a man (or our little boy) could love. I will lift weights, tinker with an old computer, or just watch sports on an old TV.

But every few weeks, my wife will venture down there and ask me why I am doing these things and not working on getting it completely finished.

I then gently inform her:

1. We got the kids to bed at 9:00 PM.
2. It is now 10:00 PM.
3. I go to bed at 11:00 PM. There is, therefore, not enough time to do anything productive.
4. I need to nail studs into the floor and the walls. This requires the use of an extremely loud nail gun.
5. Did I mention that is 10:00 PM?
6. I also need to sand the unfinshed drywall. This is extremely dusty and requires extensive clean up when finished.
7. 10:00 PM.

Before I get any backlash for my apparent laziness, please recall that at this point in the evening, my wife has been lying in bed for an hour. The kitchen is clean, but that was done by me.

But in her view, my relaxing in the basement is worse than her sleeping. It is somehow anti-work.

I promise to get it finished one day. When the kids are in college, most likely.

Feel it hot, hot, hot.

As a reminder, I do all the cooking. Like most men, I really enjoy grilling out, and this summer I have whipped up barbecued chicken, pork chops, hot dogs, burgers, you name it. My favorite, however, has to be a nice, juicy steak. I make sure to marinate them and really watch them closely.

Despite all the grilling I have done, my wife is deathly afraid of food poisoning from undercooked food. I am a bit anal about this myself, so I use a meat thermometer to check before I take stuff off the grill. Nevertheless, my wife always asks me to cook her steak/chicken/chop longer than mine, just to make sure.

What happens, of course is I get a nice, juicy steak with just a little red in the middle, and she gets a hockey puck. She will also then complain that it is too dry.

Did I mention that she will also usually put her food in the microwave for an extra minute after I serve it? Just to make sure.

Somebody Save Me!

I have mentioned before how quickly my wife can become overwhelmed by common stressful situations. This is her way of referring to it. A more truthful analysis is that her neurons are not firing quickly enough figure out the proper solution. Cooking is one example of this.

This really had my eyes rolling. Once, when my daughter was an infant, she became inconsolable. No matter what my wife did, she could not get her to stop crying. She simply couldn't take it any more and the anxiety was getting to her. So she did what she normally does in these situations: she came to me for help. Normally I expect this, but this time I couldn't believe her.

I had just finished mowing the grass in the middle of summer. I was hot, sweaty, grimy and covered with grass. She blocked all this out and brought my daughter outside so I could hold her. I explained to her how inane her request was. She got very ticked off, but mostly because she realized how much sense I was making and that she would have to continue dealing with our daughter.

I did go in, get cleaned up and rescue her from the screaming baby, though.

The grass is always greener...when I get to take care of it.

Like most husbands, I am responsible for the care and feeding of our lawn, though my wife and I occasionally butt heads on the best method to do so.

When we first bought our house, the lawn was in bad shape, as the previous owners were older and did not have the energy to maintain it. To get it back into shape, we started subscribing to a lawn care service. Not only did the grass improve, it is now a bit out of control. I have to mow it once a week to keep it looking nice. I also trim around the house and other parts of the landscaping.

After I finished my regimen the other day, my wife made a comment to the effect that I had not done a thorough enough job and that the grass was too long. She is quite a bit more meticulous when it comes to outward appearances, so the first part was not expected. What bugged me was the comment about the length of the grass.

We have had this discussion on more that one occasion. For the weather and soil in our area, it is recommended that one mow their grass at the highest setting to maintain the healthiest lawn. I reminded her of this again that this tidbit of knowledge comes not from me but from:

1. The lawn care service
2. Our aging neighbor with the immaculate lawn
3. Her parents

My opinion is usually worthless to her, since she usually assumes I am lying to her. But once she realized that someone other than me (specifically her co-dependent parents) had said it, she dropped the issue, albeit reluctantly.

She was determined, however, and went outside to trim on her own. We have an electric weed trimmer, and in all my use of it, I have never discharged the battery completely. She came back in some time later stating that the trimmer no longer worked. She had used it so long and so meticulously that she had indeed run it down. She had also trimmed the grass in places to near golf course fairway length. I reminded her of the discussion we had, but she stated that she wanted it to look neat. This included grass I planted to cover some small bare spots.

Fast forward a week. I was mowing the lawn the following week. Most of it looks great.

Except for where she trimmed. These areas are either dead or choked with weeds.

How does the lawn look now, sweetheart?

Computers Scare Her

Again, thank you for all the comments. Your support lifts a significant weight off my shoulders.

Let me first reassure everyone: If you are reading this, I can guarantee that I am not your husband. I know this because my wife is afraid of computers at best and thinks they are the spawn of Satan at worst.

She claims it is the result of a supposedly traumatic computer class she was forced to endure as a child. Fast forward to today, and you will see that her only interaction with them is via a Hotmail account I set up for her many years ago. She can only open it because I placed a "Hotmail" shortcut on the desktop in the middle of the screen. For the record, here is a list of things involving computers that confound her:

1. Opening attachments

Hotmail's procedure for this involves just following a couple of "click here" links. She is never sure if that is what she is supposed to do.

2. Forwarding e-mails

She asks me how. Every. Single. Time.

3. Opening a document

Me - "I placed the file right on the desktop next to the Hotmail icon. Just double-click on it, and the document will open."

Her - "I don't understand."

4. Surfing the web

When she wants to know our bank balance. I have to log on and show her. Every. Single. Time.
Yes, I have the site bookmarked. Yes, she knows the password (or at least I told her. She has probably long since forgotten). She has managed to click on links in her e-mail, so maybe there is hope.

5. Anything. Just...anything.

Plus, everything I'm doing must be a "game". Checking our investments? Game. Reading the news? Game. Editing videos of the kids? Game.

Of course she never sees me edit this blog. ;)

Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me

I mentioned in a previous post how my wife is a bit paranoid about our finances. One way she attempts to save us money is keeping the thermostat set so high in the summer, that the air conditioning never turns on. This is fine to a point, but the house can get quite stifling in the afternoon heat.

To combat this, my wife frequently likes to "air out" the house. She cannot do this by opening windows, however, as she is not strong enough to push them up. Instead, she frequently just opens the front door.

Again, this is not necessarily stupid, but we do not have a screen door, so bugs immediately start flying into the house. She always complains about this as if the two events were not connected. Of course, the insects in the house aren't really her problem. Like most husbands, I have been tasked with killing them.

This leads to the next demonstration of stupidity. I also mentioned previously that I do all the cooking because of my wife's inability to concentrate or multi-task. The other night I cooked a pasta dish and announced dinner was ready. I was able to quickly feed myself and the kids, but my wife, who finds it difficult to focus, kept getting distracted by one task or another and could not make her way to the kitchen.

By the time she got there, she complained that the aforementioned flies were landing on her food. She then asked if I would stand there and wave them away, since she could still not bring herself to sit down and eat. I told her that it was impossible for me to stand guard over her food and get anything else done. And by that I mean killing all the flies that got in the house.

She has since agreed to stopped ventilating the house via the front door.

You found me & Mo' Money

First off, welcome to those coming from True Husband Confessions. It seems my little secret is out of the bag. Thank you for the kind comments. I felt for sure as soon as people saw the things I said about my wife, that there would be a call for my lynching. Thanks for noticing that I really do love her. She just makes me crazy sometimes (but then, don't you all?).

On to the entry:

I have only stated that I am an "educated professional". Suffice it to say I have a well paying job. Far from being in debt, my wife and I have quite a bit of money invested. We made a lot of the right choices early in life and always save money here and there.

When I say "we", of course, I mean that I chose to invest my money and manage it myself. Prior to our marriage, my wife's parents handled all her finances. She was very nervous combining our savings, partially because it meant passing the mantle of responsibility to me, and partially because she had no clue how much she had or what to do with it. I, on the other hand, had no problem with it. What's mine is hers forever. With this in mind, here are two little gems:

- As a wedding present, my parents gave us a large some of money. I immediately began to research where to put the money for the short term, as we were looking to buy a house soon. Should I put it in savings, buy a six-month CD, or what? She got very nervous about what I was doing and said, "Hold on, it's our money! We should both be involved!"

"You are absolutely right.", I said. "What would you like to do with the money."

Silence. Then...

"Umm, invest it?" she asked.

Sigh. (In case you are curious, I found a high-yield money market. And we love the house.)

- Though we are doing well financially, my wife always feels I should make just a little more money. She frequently tells me to ask for raises that would get me laughed out of my boss's office. But my favorite is when she suggests that I get a part time job. I always have to gently remind her that this would require me to be away from home more often, something that causes her no end of grief. Once she realizes what would be required of her in my absence, she quickly recants her request. But she always brings it up again a few months later.

And how often am I away from home normally? 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM. Every weekday.

I'm OK if You're OK

My wife has an annoying habit of correcting me when I speak to people on the phone. I usually tune her out, but one instance was particularly annoying.

Someone called me and used the standard greeting , "How's it going ?"

I answered with my standard response of "Pretty well" and went on with the rest of the conversation.

My wife immediately piped up, "You're not doing pretty well! You're allergies are terrible! You've been stopped up and sniffling for days!"

After the call, I had to gently instruct her that we were using polite greetings, and no one really cares about the state of my sinuses.